Mady Christians – The Realm of Silence

Ein Walzertraum (1925; Ger.; Ludwig Berger)

This week, a glamorous production overseen by Erich Pommer for Ufa in 1925. A young, starry cast, glorious sets, fabulous locations – and music. What more can one ask for? Ein Walzertraum was adapted from the eponymous operetta from 1907 by Oscar Straus (1870-1954) and was originally accompanied by a score compiled from this (and other existing music) by Ernö Rapée. Sadly, like many scores of its era, this no longer survives – a fact that may even have been the result of the difficulty retaining copyright on Straus’s music beyond the premiere performances. (Nina Goslar very helpfully details various aspects of the film’s history, music, and restoration in Stummfilm-Magazin.) For this centenary restoration, a new orchestral score has been commissioned from Diego Ramos Rodríguez. Rodríguez worked as assistant to Bernd Thewes on the reconstruction of the original Fosse/Honegger score for La Roue (1923) in 2019, and has more recently composed a rip-roaringly splendid new score for Lubitsch’s Kohlhiesels Töchter (1920). The music for Ein Walzertraum was recorded by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Mainz, conducted by Gabriel Venzago in the Staatstheater Mainz.

This film – and the prospect of this superb new restoration – thus has many things that appeal to me. I know a few of Straus’s operettas, especially Die lustigen Nibelungen (1904) and Der tapfere Soldat (1908), as well as some of his orchestral music – and, of course, his later scores for Max Ophüls (De Mayerling à Sarajevo (1940), La Ronde (1950), Madame de… (1953)). I had also seen and been utterly charmed by another Berger film, Walzerkrieg (1933), and am interested in the “operetta film” more generally. (Willi Forst is a favourite director of the 1930s-40s.) All in all, then, I was so hooked by the idea of this film that I thought I would go to Germany to see it – and work out some other research to do around the concert, thus justifying the trip. Alas, everything I had planned apart from the concert fell through, so I no longer felt it justified the expense of going. (I received the final blow to my plan two days before I would have to leave, by which point the price of everything had also gone up considerably.) Ironically, the one thing I had booked and had to sacrifice was my non-refundable film concert ticket. It was a good seat, too. (I would have it no other way.) Thankfully, ARTE has since put the film on their mediathek page, and one may watch for free. I have watched, and – inevitably – I loved it…

The Archduke of Austria (Karl Beckersachs) is engaged to Princess Alix (Mady Christians), daughter of Eberhard XXIII von Flausenthurn (Jakob Tiedtke). But the match is not a happy one, and when the Archduke’s adjutant Nikolaus Preyn, known as “Nux” (Willi Fritsch) is substituted to take Alix on a tour of Vienna, the pair soon fall for each other. Eberhard swiftly re-arranges matters and has Alix marry Nux – and move to Flausenthurn. But the hastiness of it all gives Nux cold feet, and he abandons his bride on their wedding night. In the Piesecke biergarten he meets Franzi (Xenia Desni), the leader of a women’s orchestra. Franzi doesn’t realize that Nux is married, so a romance ensues. Meanwhile, Alix wants to make herself more appealing for Nux, who clearly misses Vienna and all things Viennese. She engages Franzi, her official Kapellmeister, to teach her the waltz – and modern fashion. With his bride and his new home transformed into a more Viennese environment, Nux’s desire for Alix is reignited. But he must break things off with Franzi, who finally realizes the truth about her lover. The last image is not of the embracing couple but of the lone Franzi, walking into the darkness. ENDE.

This is a fabulous film. As one might expect from a mid-1920s Ufa production managed by Pommer, Ein Walzertraum looks gorgeous. The sets are superb, the lighting and camerawork superb, and the location shooting in Vienna superb. There are also some lovely passages of multiple superimpositions (often in combination with models/matte painting) and delirious kaleidoscopic lens effects. But despite all this, it doesn’t feel weighed down by its artifice. It has enough (real) fresh air to give it the breath of life, and of a sense of past and place that infuses its setting and characters. It is, per the cliché of numerous such films (and operettas), set in Vienna c.1900 – and then in the Ruritanian principality of Flausenthurn. (In the original operetta, this was in the state of “Rurislavenstein”.) Thanks to the use of real locations, one has a little more belief in this world – and can wander around the parks and streets of Vienna. It has the budget and the technical prowess to give us a world that feels rich and peopled.

The cast is also very good, with some of Ufa’s youngest stars taking the lead. Willy Fritsch’s Nux has all the boyish charm you could wish for, but also has moments of emotional depth – or at least, moments when he senses that his boyishness comes at a price for others. As Franzi, Xenia Desni is very sweet – and you can see why, with her backlit halo of hair, her sentimental music, and her earnest happiness, Nux falls for her. I admit that I was not as moved by her as a performer, as a presence on screen, as I was by her female co-star…

Indeed, the real highlight of this film’s cast is Mady Christians. This is the earliest film in which I’ve seen her. Even by the end of the 1920s, I’m used to her being a very adult, very sophisticated screen presence, one radiating intelligence and a kind of tolerant, patient superiority. It was something of a surprise to see her looking so much younger here in Ein Walzertraum. Younger not just in terms of her looking more girlish, but younger also in the sense of character. (One might also say in terms of star persona.) She still has amazing flashes of intelligence and insight, but she’s also far more emotional – and vulnerable. She’s also playful in a much more fun, childish way. In one early scene, she loses patience with her father and wrinkles her nose at him like a naughty schoolgirl. It’s a lovely moment where her frustration breaks out into comic exaggeration.

Christians also plays drunk fabulously well. When Nux takes her to the biergarten, her surprise and delight in tasting beer, then in becoming embroiled in the rowdiness of her surroundings, is such a pleasure to watch. Her kiss with Nux seems at once inevitable (in the way you see it coming) and sudden (in the way it happens so brusquely on screen). Alix watches the schmooziness of other dancers, then places her head drowsily on Nux’s chest, slowly angling herself (and her mouth) closer to him (and his mouth). He finally steals a kiss, and the slow play of anticipation is suddenly ended. “What was that?” Alix demands. “That was Viennese!” Nux replies. It’s funny and touching all at once.

But it’s the aftermath of this scene, when Alix goes back to her room at the palace, that shows Christians at her most playful. At home with her chaperone Fraulein von Köckeritz (Mathilde Sussin), she is lounging on the bed, dreamily, gigglingly reliving all the thrills of her evening. Christians is very funny here, but she’s also (if I may say so) very sexy: her glance, her smile, her slightly giddy enthusiasm. She is not just a schoolgirl but an adult, with adult desires. She even makes rather more than a pass at Köckeritz – first kicking her (by accident), then crawling over to her, kissing her, dancing with her, and kissing her again. Christians is wonderful here, but also in the alter scenes, when her hurt at being rejected by Nux is palpable: she’s an adult again, with adult depths.

Among the remaining cast, I would also praise Julius Falkenstein, who plays the servant Rockhoff von Hoffrock with comic exaggeration (per his comic romance with the bassist Steffi (Lydia Potechina)) and with surprising emotion later on, per his finding the note from Nux that he thinks is destined for Alix. In the latter scene, he is hurt that Alix will be hurt – a fact that adds depth (and personal history and loyalty) to the consequences of Nux’s affair.

But what make the whole thing work so well as a viewing experience is the way image and music work together in this restoration. It makes all the reasons why the film might work into an experience that does work. Rodríguez’s score is for a symphony orchestra, including a piano and harpsichord (and various other percussion). His score uses much Viennese music of the period, as well as some actual musical samples from historic recordings, and one or two subtle sound effects. Rodríguez has an interest in electronic music in his other work as a composer, but I feel that he has bent his style to this film rather than vice versa. I found myself rather won over by the way he incorporates unusual elements into the soundscape of Ein Walzertraum. He’s also a great orchestrator, able not only to cite repertory music with great skill, but to play with its mood, texture, and rhythms. There are many moments when the sweetness and neatness of the music frays at the edges, threatening to dissolve into something harsher. Rodríguez knows how to maintain control of uncontrol, and to switch between registers and tones.

This balance between old and new, the expected and the unexpected, is evident early on. After their comically protracted scene together, Alix and the Archduke walk away, disappointed and awkward, through a path flanked by huge hedges. The wind rustles the branches, and the score magically rustles with energy. The sound of the harpsichord, almost discordant, crackles beneath the woodwind, and a subtle sound effect – only just discernible – flutters through the instruments. It’s somewhere between the rustle of wind-blown leaves and the crackle and hiss of a needle on vinyl. It catches you unawares, and I found it weirdly effective.

After the Archduke excuses himself, Nux is ordered to take Alix on the tour of Vienna. This is an utterly enchanting sequence. The camera tracks alternative before, alongside, and behind the carriage. It cranes up at the theatres and spires, drifting through the Vienna of – not 1900, but of 1925. The people on the street are clearly staring at the camera, at the stars, at the people in imperial costume. Reality bubbles at the edge of the fiction. And so too in the score. Beneath the gorgeously slow waltz there seems to be a gentle, only just audible, patter of hooves. The sound is so subtle it might be an extra instrument, a softened rattle over a drum. When Nux shows Alix the statue of Johann Strauss II (“Your Highness, the Waltz King!”, he says; “We have a dance violinist in Flausenthurn too!”, she replies), we get a refrain from that composer’s “Wiener Blut”. But it’s not just the choice of music here that works, it’s the way the score – as a soundscape – adds to this moment. As the pair approach the statue, the music is underlined by the faint crackle and hiss of (what sounds like) ancient vinyl. It’s a very subtle effect, as though something is burbling in the background of the orchestral music. Suddenly, the scene draws on another level of cultural memory. It’s not just the memory of Strauss, but the memory of the memory. It is 2025 remembering 1925 remembering the nineteenth century. Beautiful.

Later, Rodríguez brings in a delightfully jazz-inflected rendition of various traditional tunes for the wine tavern scene. Decorum starts to unbutton here, as the princess and lieutenant encounter working-class revellers, soldiers, and fortune-tellers. Rodríguez also incorporates the clapping of the orchestra into the soundscape, timed perfectly with the clapping-along on screen. (It’s utterly infectious, and I would love to know if anyone at the Mainz performances tried to join in.) Later, when the servant turns up and interrupts their dance, exclaiming: “Your Highness!” the score matches the unease of the working-class crowd, who suddenly stop dancing and stare, then awkwardly begin to hail royalty. The music brings in a brief burst of (Johann Strauss I’s) “Radetzky March”, like a splash of cold water to sober up the revelry.

If there is fun and wit here, I also love the choices enhance the emotional depth. As Alix prepares for her wedding, Rodríguez cites a few bars of the second movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 for the wedding preparations. It creates an immediate sense of solemnity that is brief but deeply moving. It’s suddenly very serious and meaningful. During the wedding itself, I also noticed a familiar Monteverdi fanfare (the opening toccata from L’Orfeo (1607)). I recalled Günter A. Buchwald’s recent use of this piece in his score for Casanova (1927); there, I didn’t like the way it was used for the harsh irony of its orchestration and employment, in absolute contrast to the tone of the film. See the difference to how it’s used here by Rodríguez inEin Walzertraum, which is delightfully pompous and in accord with the elaborate ceremonies that the servant relays via increasingly lengthy (and absurd) intertitles. The music is taken seriously, which is the point of the sequence – the pomp of the past, the pomposity of the court and its king. But it doesn’t stop the sequence being funny, indeed it enables it to be both funny and moving.

Rodríguez also knows when to step back, as when here he keeps the music rumbling at a low level through the elaborate “elevation” of Nux to noble status to marry the princess. It lets the film do the talking. We are told that this is “the wedding ceremony according to the House of Flausenthurn Regulations of the year 1611”. The list of ceremonial steps is so madly long that the scroll bearing this text soon whizzes past on screen. It’s very funny, and the score here incorporates part of a 1926/27 recording of tunes from Straus’s Ein Walzertraum. The sense not only of pastness but of ceremony is perfect: it’s an old, old celebration reliving itself, the recording both lively and ancient.

But then the Schubert is used again at the end of the ceremony, and the solemnity of it – and what Alix dreams it to be – sinks in. It’s a brilliant, beautiful choice. The wedding is also going to be “unfinished” in its unconsummated aftermath. The management of tone here, and throughout, is simply superb. Listen how Rodríguez adds the snare drum beneath Schubert’s haunting theme for woodwind, then suddenly switches to a Straus(s)ian melody on the glockenspiel, and then – for the “tearing of the bridal veil”, per the house regulations – weird percussive sounds and drums as Nux tears and tears and tears. There’s so much going on here: the solemnity, the air of childishness (and of inexperience), the expectation, the nervousness, the frustration, the pent-up energy… all incorporated into the music with great sensitivity and intelligence.

Nux’s romance with Franzi is also felt through the music. In the biergarten, the synchronization of Franzi’s female string group to “Wiener Blut” is perfect. (The programme for the concert on screen is even revealed in the notes Nux finds on his table, so the new score can clearly take its cue from this.) Franzi then takes her cue from Nux, who requests a Viennese waltz. Here, the score includes a historic recording of Strauss II’s “G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald” sung by Maria Ivoguen in 1923. The film dissolves to Nux’s daydream of the self-same Viennese woods, and dancing maidens, and the distant violinist. The song becomes a kind of dreamed sound, emerging from the film – even from the mind of Nux. (The film builds up the visual reverie with multiple superimpositions, kaleidoscopic effects of blossoms falling, piling up, and swirling like an abstract waltz.)

Meanwhile, Alix is learning the piano. She has chosen something marvellously assertive, a piece whose acoustic effect is surely beyond that of a piano reduction. There follows a brilliantly reorchestrated version of this very piece, “The Ride of the Valkyries”, with a manic piano accompaniment. It’s an amazing moment, funny and sad and furious (and sexual) all at once. It’s a woman expressing her rage and longing, the music and her emotions quite literally making the furniture quake with power. Rodríguez again shows great skill in keeping (musical) control of this outburst of uncontrol. Wagner’s music is being produced through sheer willpower, with only just enough skill to make it recognizable. The orchestra battles with the piano, which battles with the score; it’s a mess of fury and melody in sound.

When Nux and Franzi dance in her apartment, her friend Steffi plays the piano. On the soundtrack, a real piano accompanies a historic recording of “Leise, ganz leise” from Straus’s Ein Walzertraum, sung by Max Rohr in 1907. I love how complex this moment is: a real piano on screen being echoed by a real piano in the orchestra but accompanying a historic recording from the era of the film’s production. The idea of different eras, different styles, talking to one another is nicely echoed in the subsequent scene when Franzi teaches Alix a waltz on the piano. The princess’s rendition of “The Ride of the Valkyries” marvellously morphs into this waltzing melody.

Franzi then refashions the princess to make her more appealing to her husband. This activity begins with Alix openly admiring Franzi’s legs as she bends over the piano. As in the earlier scene, the princess is rather curious about another woman – and aroused. Wanting to be more like Franzi, she puts herself in her (unwitting rival’s) hands. The two women undress each other, in order to then try on each other’s clothes. At first this extends just to the outer dress, then (as Franzi realizes how many underlayers Alix is wearing) to the underwear. As they do so, Nux’s biergarten note falls from Franzi’s garment to the floor. Alix picks it up and reads it and the pair exchange smiles. With its blend of role-play, sexual suggestion, and dramatic irony, this is an amazingly complex sequence. (It becomes more complex, and funny, as Franzi then returns to the biergarten to find Nux leading her band in a waltz.) Indeed, Nux later interrupts the two women dancing – a male intrusion into what might otherwise be an all-female romance. The fact that Alix is given a short, “Bubikopf” bob haircut (the very definition of 1920s’ women’s fashion) signals her liberation from an older, more traditional form of femininity. “Ich glaube, jetzt bin ich modern!” (“I think I’m fashionable [literally: modern] now!”) she says after Franzi has finished with her. It’s an intriguing scene of possibility, of alternatives for her desire – beyond her desire for Nux.

The outcome of the above scene is also intriguingly played. Alix has made herself attractive to Nux by mimicking Franzi’s appearance, and the way she reveals her new self – by half-hiding behind a chair, by leading Nux on, allows Christians another chance to show the sophistication of her performance. The film also plays on the fact that Alix is unwittingly recreating the very facets of her rival that drew her husband to Franzi. Alix’s gesture of retrieving her lighter from inside her top echoes Franzi’s retrieving of the note inside hers. (Meanwhile, Franzi echoes Nux’s gesture of tearing the bridal veil as she tears and refashions more of Alix’s clothes in the next room.) But instead of Alix consummating the marriage with Nux at the end of this scene, Alix ends up kissing Franzi in thanks for transforming her life. Across much of the flirtatious reconciliation of Alix/Nux, we hear the “Couplet der Ninon” from Straus’s Eine Frau, die Weiss, was sie will, sung by Fritzi Massary in 1932. But Rodríguez’s musicians in 2025 provide the orchestral force behind (and to some extent over) this historic recording. Indeed, the rumbunctious orchestra threatens to overwhelm the (female) voice, as Nux’s blood is up and he chases Alix around the room. There is comedy here, but also a faint air of threat. (Here, as so often, you have to admire the orchestration, which seems on the brink of disintegration into some far wilder, less tonally coherent.) It’s another incredibly suggestive way of using modern and historic music together, producing not just a pleasing sound but a sonic (and thus dramatic) tension. It also nicely echoes the film’s introduction of Nux, when he was chasing a woman around his office. Over this early scene, the orchestra accompanies another historic recording of “O-La-La” from Straus’s operetta Der lezte Walzer, sung by Fritzi Massary in 1920. Rodríguez’s score thus repeats the pattern of movement (a kind of barely-controlled waltz as man and woman chase each other round and round) and the pattern of musical citation.

In sum, I loved Ein Walzertraum. I admit I’m an absolute sucker for this kind of thing, when it’s done well. And it’s certainly done well here. This is a fantastic film, and a fantastic score. I normally don’t like music that uses pre-recorded material, i.e. sounds/sound effects, but here it is sensitively done – and often adds to the complexity of the viewing experience. These sections also nod forward to the many operetta films of the 1930s, of which Ein Walzertraum was a major predecessor. How I wish I’d been able to experience this film on the big screen in Mainz, with the orchestra and the crowd. I’d like to know how the pre-recorded sections of the score interacted with the orchestra (and the live acoustic), and how the audience reacted to these moments. Even if I didn’t get to sit in the seat I bought, I’m glad to have offered some token of support to the restoration and those who brought it about. Bravo to all involved.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2023, Day 6)

Day 6 takes us to Germany, or rather to a Ruritanian kingdom. Ruritania has been a theme at Pordenone both this year and last year. In 2022, I wrote about Anthony Asquith’s The Runaway Princess (1929), starring Mady Christians. This year, we get another film starring Mady Christians, directed by Fritz Wendhausen—the man credited as “co-director” of The Runaway Princess. (Since The Runaway Princess was an Anglo-German co-production, this credit is perhaps a case of the German version of the film being handled by Wendhausen.) We also get a bonus “actuality” of Balkan dignitaries from 1914 (very much along the lines of a 1912 film shown last year). So—off we go…

[Ankuft des Fürstin Wilhelm I. zu Wied in Durazza (Albanien) März 1914] (1914; Fr.; Anon.). The delegation from Iran. Crowds of children. Fezzes. Dignitaries in warm coats. Soldiers march, a little out of step. Troops of children in uniform. Fezzes in different tones. The flag of Albania raised for the first time. Smoky seas, naval ships, dignitaries in big hats. Medals. Sashes. A plumed hat rubs against the underside of the deck’s awning, so the prince must stoop. Awkward salutes, handshakes. Tiny little steamboats gleaming white next to enormous cruisers. Parades of flag-bearers. An old man sweeps muck from the red carpet. The film ends. (There’s a small theme in early cinema actualities that should be written about: the people seen on screen who clean up after the people we’re supposed to be concentrating on. They’re always at the edge of the frame, or enter after the main event has passed. The film catches them from the side, or turns away just as they enter the frame. Here, the film ends just as they are beginning their work. But there they are, or were, toiling away in the margins of history.)

Eine Frau von Format (1928; Ger.; Fritz Wendhausen).

A German film with French titles. “Somewhere in Europe”, we find the realm of Sillistria. A charming way to illustrate the film’s fictional location: a hand draws a map with a brush. We see Sillistria, sandwiched between two other fictional kingdoms, Thuringia and Illyria.

A gorgeous shot of an obscure city on the coast. (The real city of Dubrovnik must remain nameless.) Sillistria’s “fleet” consists of three small boats, the “army” of a handful of men and a cannon. The residence is a lovely villa. The Chancellor (Emil Heyse) arrives in splendid uniform. The local women in “traditional” costume, a kind of blend of east and south European, vaguely Balkan, vaguely Slavic, vaguely Turkish.

Princess Petra (Diana Karenne): a lovely close-up revealed when she lowers her fan. She is cool, languid. Eyes that move expressively, assuredly. She smokes. A modern Princess for an ancient kingdom. We are told about Thuringia and Illyria, to which the Princess is determined to sell an island, Petrasia. The Chancellor threatens to resign. “You want me to have to walk around naked?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye. She shows him her bills. The Chancellor kisses her hand, shrugs, laughs.

Count Geza (Peter Leska) from the kingdom of Illyria. The attendant (Hans Thimig) is full of sly winks.

Now we are introduced to Dschilly Zileh Bey, special envoy of Turkisia (Mady Christians), broken down on the road into the city. Gorgeous scenery, a map (this time professionally printed) of the fake kingdoms. How to find her way around here? She offers money to a local, who tows her car with his bull.

In the court of Sillistria, Count Geza flirts with the Princess. The arrival of Dschilly causes chuckles and consternation. Elegant tracking and lift shots of her entry into the hotel. And a panning shot of her disappointed glance round the paltry room. The “bathroom” is simply a portable metal tub. Dschilly looks the most modern of all the characters: her smoking, her fashionable beret, her elegant yet simple dresses and shawl. And the modernity of her knowingness, her visible intelligence. Here’s a woman who knows what she wants and will find a way to get it. Charming, yes, but direct too.

Her arrival at the court. She and the Chancellor exchange mutually curious looks. (Then again, Christians always has a half-suppressed smile.) Smiles and great curtesy to her “rival”, Count Geza.

That night a soiree (tinted a lovely rose). The comic adjutant is here again, grinning and flirting and taking a sneaky drink as he serves the ambassadors. Geza and Dschilly are dancing, the camera following their movements on the dancefloor. Thence to the gardens, a quick kiss on the hand. But Dschilly wants the island. Geza wants to advance his career. The stakes are set out. (On his way out, Geza plays a sly trick: he tells the concierge that Dschilly does not wish to be woken.)

So the Princess is left waiting, and all doubt Dschilly’s qualities as an ambassador. Only Geza turns up, and begins smarming with the Princess. Attended by female servants in page attire (very charming, very ’20s), they prepare to set off together. Dschilly wakes and is angry at the trick, but soon that familiar smile breaks out: she has a plan. She demands to speak to Her Highness.

After a trip on the little yacht, Geza gets the Princess alone on the island of Petrosia. But the giggling adjutant is in the background, so too the Chancellor. Dschilly waits at the little quay, but she makes friends with the gossipy attendant and he spills information on the Count’s planned assignation that night. She and the Chancellor then row around the island, Dschilly doing the rowing. She assures him that tonight Count Geza has his reception. The conversation brings them around the island within sight of the Princess and Count. Dschilly leaps into the water to feign drowning. The Count rescues her and gets her ashore. He insists on rowing her back to the mainland. Dschilly sits up, soaking wet and ever so charming. She flirtatiously says that this is her response to his own scam that morning.

That night, the Count prepares for his lady. The door rings. The attendant answers, only for a huge supply of food and drink from the court to arrive for the count’s official reception. The attendant keeps having to answer the door as more and more people arrive, guests for the full-blown diplomatic reception that Dschilly has mischievously pulled forward by a day. Soon, dozens of high-ranking guests are swarming into the Count’s residence. The next moment, the crowd is upon him—and he had dismissed all his servants for the night. So Dschilly organizes a team of officers to serve the drinks. Meanwhile, the Count orders his attendant to remove all the candles. But he is spotted by Dschilly, who suspects another scheme. The Count is wrestling with a fuse box. The lights go out and, after a meaningful exchange between Geza and Dschilly, the guests are forced to leave.

At last, the Count’s guest approaches: it is the Princess. But the attendant who serves them is… Dschilly, delightfully made up and dressed as the real thing. She can barely contain her smirk as she serves, “accidentally” catches his hand with a match, and frustrates his flirtatious dinner. The Princess leaves and the two rivals are left together. Outside, a group of officers with music and gypsy dancers arrive. One of them soon finds the Princess’s shawl, but it is Dschilly who takes it away with her. Before she leaves, Geza confesses that he loves her. Dschilly smiles in rapture but then accuses him of saying the same thing to the Princess. She says she will be his wife—if he gets her the sale of the island.

But rumours are flying—via superimposed text and split-screen—about the Princess and the Count. The Princess demands the truth from the attendant, who admits that Dschilly was also at the Count’s residence. Angry, the Princess decades to withdraw the sale of the island.

The official hearing of the ambassadors’ withdrawal. The Princess enters in her regal finery. But as she prepares to strip them of their positions, Dschilly unravels the Princess’s shawl from her sleeve. Consternation… until Dschilly says she gladly accepts the gift that had already been given to her by the Princess. It’s her trump card: the Princess sells the island to Turkisia, “so ably represented” by Dschilly. But in private Dschilly gives the contract to Geza, announcing to the Princess that they are soon to be married—and that she will be giving up her career as ambassador. We see the happy couple, with the grinning attendant in the back seat, driving away. Naturally, it is Dschilly who sits at the wheel. Fin.

Day 6: Summary

I wrote last year that The Runaway Princess was meagre fare. Eine Frau von Format is hardly more substantial in terms of plot, characterization, or emotional depth. In all these respects it is simple and superficial. But it has the advantage of both budget and location over Asquith’s film. It looks prettier, has more to display and displays it more lavishly. Costumes, sets, and glimpses of the real Balkan exteriors are a tremendous advantage. So too the fact that the expanded cast gives more of a chance for more performances to bounce off each other. Mady Christians is always watchable, always charming, always doing something: a sly smile, a flash of the eyes, a sudden movement that implies thought and cunning—even emotion. She gets to play alongside Emil Heyse and Peter Laska and Diana Karenne—and clearly has a fine time doing so. The cast is uniformly excellent, full of precise and meaningful characterization. (Even a minor figure like the hotel manager, played by Robert Garrison, gets several little comic turns.) The direction is clear, the photography is lovely, and the tinted print looks gorgeous. (The piano accompaniment by Elaine Loebenstein is also very good.)

But the film is all surface. Eine Frau von Format is charming but not moving. And it’s funny but not biting or satirical or meaningful. Wendhausen’s direction is skilled without enhancing or adding to the story. There are a few nice tracking shots, but they are more used to reframe the action or move from long- to medium-shots. Little meaning is added by any of them. Wendhausen tells the story with perfect skill, but nothing more. He was no Lubitsch, nor was he a Stroheim. This Ruritania has none of the sheer fun or sophistication of Lubitsch’s fantasy kingdoms, nor any of the emotional depth or satirical bite of Stroheim’s.

But is it fair compare such a film to the greatest examples of the genre? Am I undervaluing the film? I should say that Eine Frau von Format is certainly about female agency, about how a woman can use intelligence and wit to negotiate power structures and achieve her goals. Mady Christians is superbly clever, and managing her performance to be so charming and sophisticated while also showing such cunning is wonderful. But there are no great depths to her character. She softens just once, reveals some sense of her inner life just once: when Geza confesses his love for her. Her charm melts away and she looks vulnerable for an instant, then smiles in a way that reveals inner joy. It’s a great moment, but fleeting. Soon the charm resumes, and the film has no means to explore—no interest in revealing—the inner depths that might lurk inside its characters. So, yes, I did enjoy Eine Frau von Format—up to a point. It’s a first-rate second-rate film.

Paul Cuff

Pordenone from afar (2022, Day 6)

Day 6 takes us back to the fictional worlds of Ruritanian kingdoms, and to the streets of 1920s London thanks to this British-German co-production from Anthony Asquith…

The Runaway Princess (1929; UK/Ger.; Anthony Asquith)

On her 21st birthday, the Princess of Lothen Kunitz runs away from her palace to avoid enforced marriage to a stranger. She goes to London with her old tutor, where she tries to earn a living—but is caught up in a fraud scheme…

The camera tilts down to reveal a grand castle, somewhere in central Europe. Tops hats are raised to a banner bearing the image of the Princess. It is Priscilla, who is thus preceded by her symbolic trappings. When we finally see her, she is surrounded by courtiers and hussars. (Hussars always look the most gawdy, hence their appearance in all the Ruritanian films streamed thus far from Pordenone; though here I note that they are wearing British-style lacing on their tunics rather than the more continental style frogging. (I have a longstanding interest in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century uniforms, but I’ll try and spare you further observations on this topic.)

Priscilla is presented with a goblet. She tries to take a good swig of the contents, but her chaperone intervenes. There is a nice gag with the courtiers dealing with the birthday gifts being offered to the Princess. She hands one large item to her aide, who passes it to their right to an usher, who passes it to their right to another usher. The usher looks hopefully to his right, but there’s no-one there, so he tries to hand it back to someone on his left. The aide eventually takes it back, disappears for a moment, and looks furtively behind him once he’s dumped it behind the dais.

A girls’ choir step forward and a singer fluffs her line. The princess tries not to laugh. Sympathy and embarrassment. We feel the awkwardness and absurdity of the occasion.

Fritzing is a faithful old tutor to the unhappy princess. Fritzing commiserates with Priscilla in the confines of a large library-cum-study, where she would clearly rather spend her time. They discuss her future, and she says “I wouldn’t marry a prince for anybody.”

Cue the Grand Duke, her father, giving her a necklace: and an ultimatum. The necklace has been given to all princesses when they come of age: it’s an engagement gift. She must marry the Crown Prince of Savona. The necklace is tight around her throat. Outside, she tries to tear it off: but the courtiers are all around and she must feign contentment.

She plans an escape, sending luggage to Amsterdam. Her packing is interrupted for a bicycle lesson, to take place under the eyes of a stern chaperone.

But Priscilla tears off into the woods, where she (quite literally) bumps into a stranger. Under boughs of crushed-focus light and shade, they share a few moments of tranquillity. Then the chaperone intervenes and they are parted.

When the Prince is announced the next day, the camera tracks in grandly and we see only the back of the man’s head. (And yes, I think the eventual pay-off is spelled clearly enough at this point.) Where is the princess? The Grand Duke must improvise: “the joy of her betrothal has caused the Princess to have a breakdown”: cut to the bicycle tyre being repumped as Priscilla and Fritzing ride away to the train station.

But on the train things start to go awry. They are the victim of money forgers, who substitute a duff £5 note for their own currency. And the stranger from the woods is following them, too—and recognizes her face from the newspaper. Also on board is a detective, investigating a gang of fraudsters—who assumes the stranger is likewise on their trail.

Then we are in London. And it’s a London of wonderful business and bustle and crowds. The budgetary constraints creating the kingdom of Lothen Kunitz confine that world to two or three spaces. But in London the streets are the camera’s to roam. The excitement of London excites the camera, which can now track and cut and look at the life of the city.

The stranger is still following Priscilla: half-mocking her efforts to get a job. Frankly, his persistence is creepy and I’m not surprised Priscilla is keen to prove him wrong. (If she called the police, the rest of the plot wouldn’t work, which is a shame.)

The race to get a job with another applicant is intercut with a dog race: it’s a neat joke but appears out of nowhere and there’s nothing else like it in the film. (Only when you look at other Asquith films can you see a context: the same kind of intercutting trick is more startlingly used in A Cottage on Dartmoor [1929] when cannons roar into life in a rapid montage of anger and violence in a barbershop.)

Priscilla ends up inserting herself into a modelling role, putting on skates and a dress as the “sportif” model—ending up plunging straight through and past the catwalk into the lobby. It’s a parody of her desire to be in control, trying as she did in Lothen Kunitz to have control over what she does and what she wears.

When she gets another job, she ends up being employed by the crooks. When her first failure ends in two of them shouting at her, there is a brilliant montage of faces—framed closer and closer—bearing down on her. It’s a more successful sequence of stylishness than the dog track scene, having more direct purpose and effect within the scene.

Then the smartest of the fraudsters works out that Priscilla is so blithely trusting that they can pay her with fake notes and get her to distribute their currency for them. The detective and the stranger are nosing around, observing notes and getting closer to their goal. At least, the detective thinks so—having earmarked Fritzing and Priscilla as the masterminds.

At every turn, Priscilla bumps into the stranger—who I wished she’d slap. Instead, she tries to show off her job success ordering everything expensive on the menu at a restaurant. (“Princess?” one waiter asks another. “Film star!” the other asserts. It’s much like the link made explicitly at the end of Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar: the Ruritanian figure as glamorous star, for whom different rules might apply.)

The film comes to a climax as the criminals are grabbed and the princess has to reveal her real name—as does the stranger. And yes, the stranger turns out to be the Crown Prince of Savona.

The royal couple appear at the end, endlessly nodding to an invisible throng of well-wishers. They look happy, but are they? The last shots of the film exactly mirror those at the start: but now the banner being saluted contains an image of the couple, and the camera tilts up from the castle to the sky.

It’s meagre fare, this film. With similar aspects to Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar, The Runaway Princess falls short in every point of comparison. It’s not as stylish, not as charming, not as inventive, not as clever. The finale of Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar questions the very material of Ruritanian fantasy, whereas The Runaway Princess returns to where it starts. If there is any question of ambiguity at whether the couple are now merely trapped with each other rather than on their own, it is only a hint: the film wraps up so quickly there is no time to think. The relationship between Nickolo and Astrid is much warmer, more developed, and more convincing in Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar. In The Runaway Princess, the “stranger” is given no substance at all, and his presence is only bearable given that we know Priscilla seems to like him. And even though she does like him, his stalking her from country to country is still difficult to accept without any scene of real warmth of engagement between them across the entire film. The Austrian actress Mady Christians is very good as Priscilla, but Paul Cavanagh is given so little to work with he can hardly do anything for his character. The Fritzing character is likewise very thin: not the complex character of André in Hans Kungl. Höghet Shinglar (or, in anther Ruritanian example of the period, the tutor figure Dr Jüttner in Lubitsch’s The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg [1927]). In terms of style, there are moments when Asquith has fun (the dog race gag, the quick cutting of close-ups in the argument) but even these stand out awkwardly against the pedestrian pace of much of the film. It’s worth noting too that the print used of The Runaway Princess was not in the best shape. There were sections of what looked like 16mm subbing for 35mm elements, and the film clearly hasn’t been restored recently. I’m still glad to have been shown it, but it’s one of the weaker films to be streamed this year.

Paul Cuff